Sunday, July 31, 2011

Rich started on the outside of the house this weekend. He and Oliver were bachelors this weekend as my sister and firstdaughter and I went to see

But before the concert we went here and had the most fabulous chicken fried chicken...with mashed potatoes and the BEST green beans in the world...

And if that wasn't enough...they then bring out homemade yeast cinnamon rolls...

And while we were sweltering in the heat and humidity and watching many Da'Runks make absolute fools of themselves, Rich was busy in the sweltering heat and humidity.. pulling railroad ties out of the front yard. The former owners had them everywhere...rows and rows of them..

Now you see them!!

Now you don't...

Here are all the railroad ties up by the house... and look closely at that "fake plastic brick siding"...

because now most of it is GONE!!

and all of it on this side...except for that little bit on the upper right hand side where the electric comes into the house. Rich said he needs some clamps and me to be there in case I need to call 911

Underneath the "fake plastic brick siding" was the same siding as the left side of the house. All Rich needed to do was add the 1x3's otherwise called the batten boards...

So one of our next jobs will be to paint all of the this siding the same color and then repaint all the trim.. Color? I don't know... I am wavering between gray with black trim and tan with brown trim and blue gray with dark gray trim... any ideas? any thoughts? and other colors you think would look better?

Did I tell you that the Kenny Chesney tickets were one of last years Christmas presents? I have an amazing husband. Thanks Rich for giving me the weekend off.. I love you!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The back hallway leads from the kitchen, through the laundry area and back to Margaritaville AKA BASR...

I hesitate to say it, but I think this might be the LAST AREA TO BE FINISHED!! We might be almost done with the inside...

We painted this past weekend... We painted anything that didn't move... in this hallway we had dirty white ceiling, tan closets, gray trim, blue walls and yellow walls....I'm not sure who picked out this color scheme, but a blind monkey could have done better... We painted the ceiling white, the trim white, the closet doors white, the insides of the closets white and the walls "Silent White".. All white...I love it... It looks fresh and clean now. We measured for the flooring and it will match the sewing room floor..

these are the cabinets over the washer and dryer. They were a nice cheap brown stuff... OMG...I just noticed that I took the photo before fixing that nasty area on the left top. It doesn't look like that anymore...it's all fixed and painted..

I want to know who? paints the inside of their closets tan... it just looks dirty...

I painted the front door..and had a bit of mishap..I had the door laying on the saw horses and apparently it wasn't balanced and it fell off and broke off part of the window frame... I fixed it with a bit of super glue..

Rich sprayed the pot light frames.. The three big ones go into the living room, the two narrow ones go in the back hallway and the odd man there second from the top went into the trash...

The back hallway is where the second front door is. We don't know why there was a second front door put in. This house was never a duplex, there was never a rental apartment.. any way it was there..and needed to come out.

Rich's idea - Let's finish up the back hallway, get it painted, put the new floor down and then sometime in the future we will take out the second front door and rip up the new floor and then drywall and repaint...

My idea - DO IT NOW!!

Guess who won?

Door removed.. we had to put a piece of board up there to keep the cats out. We didn't know what supplies we would need until he removed the door and so then we had to go to town.

header board in with stud holding it in place.

two studs...

third stud added, plastic barrier and outside siding piece added

and the second front door is no longer. We tried really hard to match the paint, it couldn't be done. The paint guy at the hardware store mixed two different colors trying to match and this is as close as we could get.

This is the front of the house. The white door I painted is now in that hole. Our plan? Remove all the plastic brick siding, put matching batten board siding on and have the whole house, including all the windows trim, painted. Hopefully next spring. We will also remove all that wood walkway. It's get very slippery in the winter and add a concrete porch. Then a new concrete walkway will go through the yard and out towards the driveway.

Did I mention that Rich did all this outside work in these temps? grueling heat. He would work for about 20 minutes and then come inside to cool off for 10 minutes. We both drank lots of water...

He also removed all the wood walkway that led from that second front door.. We will eventually add some kind of planter there and put in bushes.. or something...you will soon find out we aren't gardeners..at. all.

looks like we need to call the trash guy...

And while Rich was sweating outside, I was doing this...

When I removed the nasty plastic light fixture in the laundry area this is what I found.. wires coming through the drywall.

So I added an electrical box.. after finding out there was a second ceiling above this one and having to cut it out so I could get the box in there. Rich did use the hole saw to make the first cut.

and a new light fixture. And I did this all myself, with Rich outside.. I did have some questions...but did most of the work.

We bought our first furniture for the new house!! A patio set that was on sale at Lowe's.. It's wrought iron and the legs all have plastic caps on them so no scratches.. If it ever gets cooler than Hell we might get to eat out there..

So we are ready to order the flooring for the hallway and get that down and then I have a feeling we will be working outside...bah! In this heat! I am NOT looking forward to that..

But first...I am taking my sister and one daughter to Kansas City to see Kenny Chesney in concert. I got the tickets from Rich for Christmas and we have two hotel rooms and we get free breakfast and we are ALL looking forward to it. I think we also get to see Zac Brown Band, Billy Carrington and Uncle Kracker,...

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Anyone know what kind of flower that is in the header? It opens up in the morning and closes at night..

EDIT - Rich says the flowers are opened in the morning and close sometime during the heat of the day. We looked at google images of both Rose of Sharon and Morning Glories and neither has the same kind of leaf we have on our plant. Our flowers are large also...around 3-5 inches across..

Monday, July 18, 2011

The last piece of floor went down in Margaritaville.. Someone asked the name of the flooring..It's Sugar Maple by Lumber Liquidators. It's laminate. We put it over CDX subfloor and then used a felt pad that Lumber Liquidators sells. When finished we had 3 pieces of flooring left. I'd say that is cutting it close..lol

Rich added all the quarter round and then used matching wood filler to cover all the nail holes...

This is the leftover quarter round. That larger piece is about 7 inches long.. We cut that one a little close too...

My design wall....and look at those lights!! I LOVE THEM... They are one of the few items from the original house that we are recycling.. These lights originally hung in the kitchen. We kept them and after scrubbing them down in the sink they are PERFECT over the design wall.

And this the door to the closet in the sewing room. The second coat on the second side is drying and will be ready to hang this coming weekend.

And so Margaritaville (formally known as the BASR) is finished...

So we took a nap, read a book, had dinner, went out dancing... started in the back hallway. The back hallway connects the main house to the sewing room. It also houses the laundry area and two large closets.

This is the beautiful blue color the previous owner picked.. such a small hallway for a big color... but the white trim was ok..

I painted the ceiling (it's still wet that's why it's shiny) and then used the end of the ceiling paint to start priming the walls...

And suddenly realized that the trim and doors weren't white..they are gray...can you see the difference between the wall/trim color and the door color? yea..gray...whatever...so now I have to paint all the trim and the doors..

All primed... and there is the big laundry tub. I haven't ever had one and I am so excited to have it. It will be Olivers bathtub along with many other uses..

When we put in the door to the kitchen, we had to do a bit of demo..and we had a little drywall to patch.

These are the cabinets in the laundry area. Don't like the brown. And that light will be gone..

Cabinets and cabinet doors now primed....

And we hung the sliding doors in bedroom three...

and Rich rehung the screen doors and then moved everything out of the sun porch and swept and vacuumed it...so nice and clean now..

Kitty update...
Sadly one of the babies from the second litter was found dead at the bottom of the steps. We still have four hanging out, a mixture of kitties from both litters.. We have no idea what happened to the others..

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Fr:iday evening after Rich quit work we headed out to the house to do some painting.. We painted both sliding closet doors for the third bedroom and both screen doors.. Then we came back home. It was a bit weird. Around 6:30pm, Rich said.. "Why don't you call home and see if there are any messages?" Lo and behold we have a call that someone wants to show the house in a half hour. YIKES! We didn't take Oliver with us...he is in the laundry room... In the mean time Ryan calls and says his car is broken down for the second time in two days and he is waiting for the tow truck. We told him if it worked, go by the house and get the dog out of there...and turn on all the lights...and close the toilet lids!! lol Then we were afraid he wouldn't make it, so I called the neighbor, gave him the garage code and he put Oliver outside on his chain. We were about a half hour away so it would be close. Not knowing if Ryan had made it or not, we headed straight to the house...just in time to see the realtor pull into the driveway.. Luckily the dog was gone so we met Ryan and picked him up. Lesson learned. Take the dog...

Saturday was the July meeting of the St Louis Modern Quilt Guild and I don't miss those, so Rich went out by himself early and I didn't get to the house until almost 3pm. He got the first and second coat of paint on one side of the sliding closet doors for bedroom three and both screen doors...

This morning at 7am I got up and put the second coat of paint on the other side... Now they dry...

this is NOT a dining room chair. There was a bit of touch up needed on the baseboard...the first time I did it Oliver licked all the paint off. So this time I stuck the chair in front of it. SUCCESS!

did I show you that we painted the inside of the sky light blue? I love it...

This morning we laid the padding for the floor in the sewing room...the last time we laid a laminate floor we also had to use padding.It was like foam and very thin and really hard to work with....but boy this new stuff is great. It's all recycled material and feels like felt. Heavy and lays down nicely..we used the electric stapler to hold it down...

First couple of rows...

LUNCH BREAK!!

This is where my legs gave out and we showered, packed and headed home... Rich and I work differently. I handed him the flooring and then stood on the last piece we did and held it in place and also bent over and held the pieces so they went together. Rich on the other hand sits and scoots... He slides the flooring together and uses the handy tool to make sure they lock into place. So I stand and bend..he sits and scoots...AGAIN.. I STAND AND BEND...he sits and scoots. MY LEGS ARE JELLO!! They ache...they hurt...and I would go soak in a nice warm bath, but I would never get out..

doesn't it look pretty??? Those white things sitting inside the built in are the doors.. We forgot to get new hinges and handles... next Lowes trip...

another view...

We started with 17 boxes of flooring and we have 6 left... and 104 ft of quarter round for the edging. Normally we would pull the baseboard, put down the flooring and replace the baseboard. We can't..it's complicated...so we will trim the edges with quarter round to match...it will be fine.. This is the hallway...that blue on the wall is gonna go...quick...

did I mention it was HOT!!

And Saturday night we went to Karen's house where we scored all these concrete pavers for FREE

and there are six round ones... We have no idea what we will do with them...but they were FREE!!